The Strange

Like the best storytellers, Ron Base in 'The Strange" leads you to somewhere you thought you knew, in this case Paris, and reveals it to be even more magical and enchanting than you could possibly have imagined. It's a tale of cunning and deception with intrigue, high adventure and vivid characters including a future King of England and the man who built the Eiffel Tower with a plot as tasty and satisfying as dinner at the Ritz.

Ray BennettUK critic, The Hollywood Reporter

An entertaining romp of psychic derring-do in turn-of-the-century Paris where Ned seeks his lost parents with the help of a chatty falcon, newfound levitation skills, and tangles with the likes of Proust, Escoffier, Cesar Ritz, Gustave Eiffel and the Prince of Wales. A delight!

Gina Mallet National Post critic and award-winning author of Last Chance To Eat

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Orphaned and penniless in the Paris of 1899, fourteen-year-old Ned Arnheim is taken in by a mysterious, enigmatic international confidence woman named Mrs. Nevermore, who may or may not be a sorciere - a witch.

Ned is blessed - or cursed - with a curious power called the Strange. If he concentrates hard enough, he can levitate, and move objects around. This "power of the Strange" allows him to see into the Other World where lurk strange creatures known as gargoyles, and where there is a talking falcon named Peregrine.

When Mrs. Nevermore finds Ned's sketches of the Eiffel Tower, they provide the inspiration for an audacious confidence scheme that will make them rich - sell the Eiffel Tower! Ned decides he has to stop her and that sets off a series of adventures filled with magic and mystery, chases through rat-infested sewers, attacks by winged creatures out of a boy's worst nightmares, all set against the glamorous, dangerous backdrop that is the world's most enchanting city on the verge of a new century.